//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: My Perspective // Story: Violets are Blue // by hell00001 //------------------------------// Violets are Blue Chapter 7 “Day after day the princesses sit within their castle while their subjects want and plead for some sort of sign that their cries have been heard!” A herald shouted from atop a pile of crates. Close to one hundred ponies surrounded the boxes, several whispering amongst each other while many others raised their hooves and shouted. “What do they take us for, some sort of waste to be trampled into the dust by those that walk our streets hidden? The eerie black creatures who haunt and stalk our roads and alleyways, shifting their beady eyes among those who are the least expecting, the least wary, and the least watchful of our species. What are they to us? To them? To those ponies that we call our princesses? Why have Princess Celestia and Princess Luna failed to hear our shouts?” A roar of cheers erupted around the crates, ponies stomping their hooves down on the cobblestone streets or waving their hooves high into the air. Unicorns flared their horns, pegasi flapped their wings, earth ponies bucked their hind hooves, all in a synchronized uproar of angry shouts, disdain curses, and menacing growls. The herald looked on at the crowd with a vicious smile pursed on his lips, and at a single stomp of his hoof the entire throng fell silent. “I tell you, my loyal Equestrian citizens, we are nearly to the point when our cries and pleas will no longer suffice,” the herald continued, his smile disappearing to be replaced by a snarl. “We ask all day for the protection of our loved ones before they can be taken when the moon is high by those who would crave for the very defining feature of everypony. Who would prefer to see their husband, their wife, their foal, taken in the night to be claimed as nothing more than satisfaction for a disgusting appetite? Our friends, our family, our livelihood, all on the brink, in the grasps of those who we should supposedly so eagerly embrace into our cozy little societies?” He paused, listening as whispers sprang through the crowd. Some angry agreements rose from several ponies in the back, and he added, “The very thought makes me sick.” More deafening cheers and violent stomps erupted from the crowd, forcing the herald to hold his silence for the time being. Behind the crowd, watching from a nearby alleyway, stood Zumas wearing a dark grey cloak with the hood pulled over his head. He stared right at the herald, his entire face blank aside from his eyes, which bore into to herald’s own with an icy glare. An earth pony strode up behind Zumas, wearing a cloak with the hood pulled over his head as well. He grunted when he was several steps behind the unicorn and stood at attention. Zumas took one look behind him before focusing back on the herald. “Sir, Nero and the rest of the company are waiting to take you to the new safe house,” the earth pony said in a low voice. “There are no guards in sight for several blocks. We should be able to move without anypony stopping us in the streets.” “Stay a moment, Swifthoof,” Zumas said, nodding his head towards the herald. “Listen with me.” Swifthoof hesitated for a moment, looking down at his hooves, then he crept forward and stood next to Zumas. The crowd’s cheers slowly died down and the herald cleared his throat. “I propose that we take a new course of action, Equestrians!” the herald shouted, raising his hoof into the air. “If the princesses refuse to hear their subject’s pleas for help and instead decide to consort with that bug that lives in the castle, then it is going to be up to us to take things into our own hooves. We live in a nation where our voices are free and our actions more so. For us to sit idly by and wait for the changelings to make their move on our families is folly, madness, imbecilic!” Several cheers rose out, but the herald held up his hooves to silence them. “These changelings must go. We have waited for too long to be rid of their parasitic filth, why should we wait longer when our precious leaders knowingly ignore our requests? It is time for the worker, the family pony, the citizen to rise up and face those which threaten our homes!” A second deafening roar shook the throng of ponies. Zumas and Swifthoof stared at the spectacle, watching as ponies waved their hooves in the air, trampled the ground, all because of the words of one pony. Swifthoof shook his head and cast a side glance towards Zumas. “Nothing more that some ponies angry with the politics of a large nation,” he said. “Why bother with the crowds when money and market await us in the future?” “Because, Swifthoof,” Zumas started, turning and walking down the alley away from the crowd, “the commodities that fluctuate within a crowd of riled citizenry provide the most opportune and pricey sales. You may look at the world as any other pony may see it: a place to survive and make it on your own, and look back and revel in what you may or may not have accomplished, but me? I see something far different.” Zumas and Swifthoof came to the exit of the alley, turning onto a wide street and pushing their way into a shuffling crowd of ponies. The sun hung high overhead, although it did little to warm the chill that cut through everypony’s coats as a gentle wind picked up. “Money and sales are just a positive set compared to the overall goal of a successful business,” Zumas added. “What I really look for are the profits, the consumers, and the merchandise itself. Money doesn’t matter if you can’t use it the way you see fit, and the sales are worthless if the consumers don’t see any value in any of your merchandise. You need a median between the two to get what you are looking for.” Several ponies dressed up in clown outfits for the festival shot fireworks into the air, exploding in a screen of colors and hues that molded themselves into Princess Cadance’s cutiemark. Zumas took a moment to stare up at the spectacle before he scowled and moved on with Swifthoof. The street became more and more densely packed with ponies, allowing for the mercenary and the convict to move freely without the worry of attracting attention. “And that is what I strive for now that I am back in business,” Zumas continued. “Everypony hits some setbacks here and there on their road to notoriety and eminence, all part of the learning curve that separates the weak from the strong, the intelligent from the ignorant, and the clever from the idiotic. All you can hope for is to be able to get back onto your hooves again when you are knocked down, but first you must know that you are able to try again. “So, that’s where I stand now.” They passed by a crowd surrounding two mimes who were doing some sort of intricate rope trick. Zumas purposefully avoided their performance, continuing, “I am back in Canterlot, walking the streets with a new head of ideas and a new plan of action. I made some mistakes in the past, but those are behind me now and I intend for them to stay that way. This city needs a return to sender, and I’m back to return everything back to the median that I have always been looking for.” Zumas and Swifthoof came to a large, rundown apartment building standing three stories tall. The noise of the crowds retained, but the ponies within them had long since disappeared, remaining congregated towards the marketplace and street performers. Zumas’ coat billowed as another gust of wind picked up, and although the wind cut and sent shivers up and down Swifthoof’s spine, the unicorn remained unfazed. “For two years I’ve waited for the day when Canterlot will become the cesspit mosh of high class and struggling beggars it once was,” Zumas said. “Now that I have seen the changes made to the city, the unrest and contempt, it’s clear that there isn’t any time more wonderful than now to smash the pillars of reformation and restoration that the princesses and Chrysalis put in place. The heroes have had their time to shine, but now it’s our turn.” He paused, looking up at the sky and the dark, fall season clouds looming overhead. “And this time we do it without any mistakes or impediments. Those that foiled our plan last time must be removed. We must find the changeling and her precious colt.”